Breaking the cycle of emotional eating

Do you celebrate with a decadent dessert when you're happy, dive into a bag of chips when you're stressed, and bury your sorrows in a tub of ice cream when you're depressed? Chances are, you're an emotional eater.

Most of us begin placating our feelings with food before we're even able to talk, when our wails are silenced with a bottle or breast. From that moment, food becomes a psychological coping mechanism.

"Certain foods increase the amount of neurotransmitters in your brain and induce other biochemical changes that provide comfort," says Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and author of Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Develop a Balanced Relationship to Food.

But eating is only pleasurable to a point, says Albers: "When you nibble past feeling full to stuffed, comfort quickly turns to discomfort." It takes 20 minutes for your brain to recognize that your stomach is filled with food. Trouble is, in 20 minutes, you may wolf down a gallon of ice cream – and then you feel sick.

Write down what you eat

"Snacking may distract you temporarily from your worries," says Albers. However those underlying feelings come right back until you find a healthier way to manage them.

Before you can break the cycle, you have to identify which emotions trigger your binge eating. Write down everything you eat and how you felt before, during, and after you ate it, says Christine Gerbstadt, national spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. Were you hungry or just bored? Were you happy or sad?

After a few days, you'll have a good idea of which emotions send you straight to the kitchen. What's more, writing down what you're about to eat and how you feel buys you time to figure out whether you're truly hungry or you're just trying to soothe yourself.

How to prevent binge eating

Instead of relying on an emotional or physical cue to eat, try eating before you get hungry and plan out four to six meals a day, suggests Gerbstadt. "For each meal and snack, eat a mix of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, so the foods you eat keep you satisfied." Once you establish a habit of eating smaller portions throughout the day, you won't be as vulnerable to overeating.

Build time into your day for physical activity. A study tracking frequent snackers found that those who went for a brisk five-minute walk when they felt frazzled were much less likely to grab a candy bar than those who sat at their desks. Experts claim that walking can help lift serotonin levels and make you feel less anxious.

Arm yourself with a list of things to do instead of eating and post it on the refrigerator. "Each time you have the urge to stress eat, pick another calming activity like taking a bath or going to the park," says Albers. The trick is to retrain your brain to get its needs met without food.

7 binge-busting strategies

Before you put anything in your mouth, write it down. Simply writing it down will make you slow down and assess whether you're really hungry.

Use smaller serving bowls and plates.

Repackage foods in smaller snack containers.

Never eat straight from a package or ice cream tub.

Store tempting foods out of sight and in inconvenient locations (like a basement or top cupboard).

If there's a food in the house you can't resist, throw it out!

Allow yourself a small serving (150 to 200 calories) of your favorite food before the urge to overeat strikes. Then go for a walk.

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